Commander-type Heroes can gain the abilities of Inside Informant and Insight, which give some amount of "Leech" to Dust and Research, respectively. I assume this means they can take a little Dust or Research from other civilizations, but how is the amount calculated? Does it change if the Hero is a fleet commander or system administrator? Does the Hero need to be near the borders of another civilization, or orbiting around one of their worlds, or what?
What does a hero’s power of “Leech” do
endless-space
Related Solutions
That icon indicates ship or planet sensor range. It denotes how far away you can see enemy ships and colonies. The higher, the better. There is no downside to having larger sensor ranges (other than improvement maintenance costs).
Ships can get sensor package upgrades, which will allow them to see further, and make ideal upgrades for scout ships. These upgrades increase sensor range by:
- Long Range Sensors: +4
- Brainwave Sensors: +6
- Dusty Sensors: +8
Star Systems also have sensor upgrade packages, which the primary use of are for early detection and warning systems. The further away you can detect incoming enemy ships, the more time you have to move ships to defend the planet. These upgrades each provide 10% to sensor range:
- Collaborator Networks
- Signal Laser Array
Sophons also get a racial unique upgrade that provides +20% to sensor range: the Predictive Sensor Array.
Your heroes can also help increase the sensor range of planets with Abilities:
- Security Specialist: +4 to Star Systems
- Foresight: +2 to both Fleets and Star Systems (Only the applicable bonus is applied; can't use both at the same time with the same hero)
I couldn't find any data about star system's initial range, unfortunately. Each planet should have the same range, sans improvements/hero abilities, once they become full colonies. Note that planet influence increases with population; that's the colored circle around your planet; sensor range is the colorless circle around ships and planets.
Fleet size is determined by Command Points Cap, found on the left (Diplomacy and Trading) branch of the tech tree.
Clicking on a fleet and looking at the number next to the satellite dish icon is a quick way to see the fleet size limts. Here 16 of 16 slots are used.
Note: Researching Quantum Communications unlocks C3 Systems which gives you +2 cap for each new ship class acquired (ship classes are unlocked in the bottom tree, Exploration and Expansion).
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Best Answer
The description in-game says that you gain +0.25% * HeroLevel or +0.5% * HeroLevel of science (or Dust) per turn from enemy and ally systems in which they are located. (I think they stack, since each ability is described as + 0.25% or + 0.5%, so if you have both, then it's 0.75% * HeroLevel.)
So: the Hero must be a fleet commander in somebody else's system, and they get a pretty tiny fraction of the dust or research the system produces (Say, 15% for dust or research if you're level 20 and have both abilities). If it's an enemy system, then you're already invading it (or about to be killed by a counterattack), so it won't apply for very long. If it's an ally system, then you're probably better off using that hero elsewhere. It can be useful if you're not at war, and just killing time with the Commander-in-Chief ability to train your fleet while waiting around in an allied system to steal some dust or research, but that's specific enough to not come up very often - even then, that hero is probably going to be better for your empire as a system administrator than as a fleet commander. A mere 5 Wit lets your hero grant a +10% bonus to research and dust to one of your systems, which is more than the Leech is likely to do, and generates other bonuses to industry, food, and possibly other things depending on your hero's abilities. If you care about generating Dust and Research, you'll generate more of it with the various Wit-boosting abilities than with Leech.
Unfortunately, the effects of the leech are not listed in the summary-of-all-hero-effects in the upper-right of the hero inspection screen, even when that hero is a fleet commander orbiting an enemy/allied system.